"Russian
support for Syria is not only a matter of Moscow's desire to retain its 'warm
water' port on the Mediterranean or the global geostrategic struggle between the
Russia-China camp and the U.S.-Europe camp. While these motives are important,
they are not fundamental to Moscow's gamble on the survival of the Baath regime
and its refusal to allow its leader to be toppled."

Russian support for Syria is not only a matter of Moscow's
desire to retain its “warm water” port on the Mediterranean [Tartus Naval Base] or the global
geostrategic struggle between the Russia-China camp and the U.S.-Europe camp. While
these motives are important, they are not fundamental to Moscow's gamble on the
survival of the Baath regime and its refusal to allow its leader to be toppled.
So what's pushing Russia to oppose U.S.-European support for Syria's armed opposition
and attempt to defeat it?

Primary among these are:

First, to safeguard Russian security in Chechnya. The groups
fighting in Syria constitute an ideological, organizational and militant
extension of groups in Chechnya that oppose Russia. Therefore, a victory for
the armed Syrian opposition would be a victory for the armed Chechen
opposition.

Second, the Qatari project to build a gas pipeline from Doha
to Europe. The pipeline would replace a Russian pipeline that extends to Europe,
which heats and powers large swaths of European industry. The Qatari pipeline would
financially and economically compete with Russia's existing pipeline, politically
weakening Russian influence in Europe.

These two factors: domestic insecurity in Chechnya and the Qatari
gas pipeline, combine to weaken Russia's international influence, thus resulting
in the third and perhaps most major factor.

Posted By Worldmeets.US

Moscow says to her friends that in the absence of Russian vigilance,
Washington kidnapped Iraq and Libya, that this will not be repeated again, either
in Syria or anywhere else, and that balance, mutual understanding and
cooperation are the only bases of international relations. That was the sum
total of the [June 2012] Geneva
conference on Syria, the final communiqué of which provided for a suitable
basis for a solution, which does not depend on a military solution among Syria's
warring parties.

There are three factors we can discuss, any one of which
would significantly alter the situation on the ground between the Syrian regime
and its armed opposition:

First: Large and noticeable defections from the military,
which would result in a significant loss of initiative on the part of the
Syrian Army. Second, a unification of opposition forces that would give it a
level of cohesion and direction that it currently lacks. And third, a change in
Russia's position which would offer cover to American military intervention,
similar to what occurred in Iraq and Libya. In the absence of one or all of these,
the conflict will remain deadlocked, with little likelihood of a strategic
change that would decisively benefit any of the parties.